# PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT



## surskitty (Mar 17, 2011)

*SNIVY AND ITS EVOLUTIONS ARE NOT SNAKES.*

They are GRASS LIZARDS.

If I hear one more person argue with me on this subject, I will probably beat them to death.


What Pokémon misidentifications piss you off?


----------



## Blastoise Fortooate (Mar 17, 2011)

Isn't it called officially the 'Grass Snake Pokémon', though?

Honestly, most pokémon aren't any one animal anyway. Mightyena is obviously a hyena, but it looks a lot like a wolf and it tends to fill that role. Pikachu is called a mouse all the time, even though it's more specifically based on the pika.


----------



## Butterfree (Mar 17, 2011)

Why do you care?

It is beyond me why anyone would choose something as inane as what animal a Pokémon is based on to get seriously upset about.

Though I do balk when people think anything whatsoever about Raikou is more canine than feline, I suppose. But that's puzzlement, not pissed-off-ness.


----------



## surskitty (Mar 17, 2011)

Blastoise said:


> Isn't it called officially the 'Grass Snake Pokémon', though?
> 
> Honestly, most pokémon aren't any one animal anyway. Mightyena is obviously a hyena, but it looks a lot like a wolf and it tends to fill that role. Pikachu is called a mouse all the time, even though it's more specifically based on the pika.


Cyndaquil's called a Fire Mouse.  Doesn't make it true!

Pikachu's based on a pika?  It doesn't really look like it.  I mean, I've heard people say that, but I think that's just because of spelling.  Pretty sure 'pika' as in the animal is pronounced 'paika', too.  I'd think gerbil or maybe kangaroo rat before pika, but that's not very close, either.  Close_r_, at least, but not close.  And raichu's probably kangaroo-inspired.





Bachuru said:


> Why do you care?
> 
> It is beyond me why anyone would choose something as inane as what animal a Pokémon is based on to get seriously upset about.
> 
> Though I do balk when people think anything whatsoever about Raikou is more canine than feline, I suppose. But that's puzzlement, not pissed-off-ness.


Mainly because some asshole (he was an asshole for other reasons; among other things, he later defended Charlie Sheen and seemed to find it funny that I am bothered by rape jokes) I was talking to last night was going on about how snivy ~represents the evolution of snakes~ and was completely ignoring me when I said it's clearly a grass lizard.  I think he was expecting me to be impressed by his ~knowledge of biology~, now that I think about it.

I'm not upset about it!  It's a safe assumption that if I am saying things as though I am completely infuriated, I'm snickering.  It's when I'm going ... a lot that I'm probably actually pissed off!

Yeah, I don't get that either!


----------



## Zhorken (Mar 17, 2011)

The Snivy line is so much awesomer with this knowledge.

Also:






Serperior has hands!  It just keeps them behind its back.  They're secret like Crobat's feet (used to be.)

EDIT: Also also Arcanine is a shisa, which I kept using to say it's half-cat but now that I read the article again I don't actually think so.  I think shisa are just shisa.  Hmmm.


----------



## nothing to see here (Mar 17, 2011)

> Isn't it called officially the 'Grass Snake Pokémon', though?


Well... that could be like how Blastoise is labeled as a "shellfish," even though that usually means clams and stuff like that.  Pokédex "species" titles aren't really all that reliable.

As for the new Grass-type starters, though, I always figured they were just snakes with legs.  Not sure if it was specifically done that way to represent the evolution of snakes, though... it could be something really simple like "let's have a snake for a starter... except let's give it legs, because all the starters so far have had legs."
We already have an octopus with less than eight tentacles, a jellyfish with eyes, a bat with four wings, and a bunch of dragons without any hair, after all... so Pokémon don't always match up perfectly with the anatomy of the critters that they're based on.  A snake with legs isn't that far out there.

And anyway, "snake that still has small legs" and "very long snakelike lizard with small legs" aren't really that far apart to begin with (especially when you completely ignore the rules of normal biology and turn 'em into a Pokémon), so it's really hard to say which one they were really supposed to be without some sort of official word on the subject.  Maybe they're both?


----------



## surskitty (Mar 17, 2011)

They're grass lizards.  Look at the head shape.  And it's probably not a case of Gamefreak having no clue how snakes work like with Seviper, either, given that's a very lizardlike head.  Which makes sense, as it's a grass lizard.

Yeah, they don't always match up perfectly, but they often match up pretty well to a cartoonified version.  The snivy line's pretty clearly grass lizards.  It's even a bit of a pun: they're _grass_ lizards.


----------



## JackPK (Mar 17, 2011)

Blastoise said:


> Honestly, most pokémon aren't any one animal anyway. Mightyena is obviously a hyena, but it looks a lot like a wolf and it tends to fill that role. Pikachu is called a mouse all the time, even though it's more specifically based on the pika.


AFIAK it's commonly accepted that the "pika" in "Pikachu" refers to the Japanese onomatopoeia for sparkling (and, by association, electricity), not the animal pika.


----------



## surskitty (Mar 17, 2011)

Well, yes.  The pronounciation's not even right.


----------



## spaekle (Mar 17, 2011)

It irritates me a bit when people call Arceus a horse.


----------



## Kratos Aurion (Mar 17, 2011)

enekoiru said:


> They're grass lizards.  Look at the head shape.  And it's probably not a case of Gamefreak having no clue how snakes work like with Seviper, either, given that's a very lizardlike head.  Which makes sense, as it's a grass lizard.
> 
> Yeah, they don't always match up perfectly, but they often match up pretty well to a cartoonified version.  The snivy line's pretty clearly grass lizards.  It's even a bit of a pun: they're _grass_ lizards.


Inaccuracy != they weren't still trying for some combination of the two. Why is it so terrible for there to be some snake in the _intended_ design, even if the depiction isn't perfect? Besides: snake (or snide, whatever) + ivy. Serpent + vine. Serpent + superior. I see lots of snakes, but I don't see a single lizard. They clearly _meant_ to imply a relation to snakes; otherwise they wouldn't have chosen the names they did. It seems to me that your rant should be more directed at the designers for doin' it rong than at people who very logically assume that they're at least part snake thanks to their names.

ETA: the curvature and tapering of the snout itself, regardless of the rest of the head, says "vine snake" to me.


----------



## mewtini (Mar 17, 2011)

Umm...I think that I get annoyed when people think that Gyarados is a Water/Dragon. It's supposed to be Dragon/Flying, I think. Although I'm just really picky in accuracy when it comes to Pokemon.


----------



## surskitty (Mar 17, 2011)

I'm not bothered by people saying they're snakes; I'm bothered by people saying they're snakes after I point out that grass lizards exist.  

Grass lizards are obscure, so I'd expect that they'd expect for people to _think_ it's a snake, hence snake names and calling it the 'grass snake' pokémon.  It's just ... it's a lizard.  The distinction is important to me.


Mewtini: Why should it be dragon/flying?  It doesn't fly.


----------



## Kratos Aurion (Mar 17, 2011)

So then why can't it be both again? If they really cared that much they would have either called it a lizard or dropped whatever resemblance it had to said lizards and gone snake whole-hog. As it stands, it's probably more of a "hey vine snakes, but let's also throw in this obscure legless lizard here and there as a nod to people who know they exist" thing imo.


----------



## surskitty (Mar 17, 2011)

Yeah, okay, snout works for vine snake for snivy (though less so for its evolutions, I think).  ... but also works for grass lizard.  That works, but my point's more that I am bothered by people who insist it's a snake after I inform them of the existence of grass lizards.


----------



## Kratos Aurion (Mar 17, 2011)

That's fair enough; yeah, it just sounded like you were insistent that NO THEY CANNOT POSSIBLY BE SNAKES etc., which would be... silly. I dunno, I used to get a little worked up over the mightyena wolf/hyena thing, too, but the way I see it these days it's just their loss if they can't appreciate more of what went into the design.


----------



## Karkat Vantas (Mar 17, 2011)

Pikachu looks like a fusion of a mouse and a rabbit, sort of like an actual pika. So yeah, I think Pikachu is a pika.

I personally got very pissed when the first batch of 5th Gen Pokemon came out and people began crying "WTF IS WITH MAMEPATO? LIKE.... DUDE WE ALREADY HAVE A PIGEON". Because Pidgey clearly is supposed to be a pigeon.

_Clearly._


----------



## Karkat Vantas (Mar 17, 2011)

Pikachu looks like a fusion of a mouse and a rabbit, sort of like an actual pika. So yeah, I think Pikachu is a pika.

I personally got very pissed when the first batch of 5th Gen Pokemon came out and people began crying "WTF IS WITH MAMEPATO? LIKE.... DUDE WE ALREADY HAVE A PIGEON". Because Pidgey clearly is supposed to be a pigeon.

_Clearly._


----------



## JackPK (Mar 17, 2011)

Mewtini said:


> Umm...I think that I get annoyed when people think that Gyarados is a Water/Dragon. It's supposed to be Dragon/Flying, I think. Although I'm just really picky in accuracy when it comes to Pokemon.


Um, no, Water/Flying. If it was supposed to be anything else the designers would have made it that way in the first place, or changed it in Gen II as they did with Magnemite/Magneton. End of story.

(I suppose people trying to shoehorn Gyarados into the Dragon type is my pet peeve. Just because it's based on a dragon doesn't make it a Dragon-type, and just because it isn't a Dragon-type doesn't make it a mistake. It's based on the legend about a _fish_ that _flew_ over the gate thing whatever to become a dragon. Go read about it on Bulbapedia.)


----------



## mewtini (Mar 17, 2011)

I base the mistake off of my few friends. And thank you for correcting me. Sorry >_<


----------



## surskitty (Mar 17, 2011)

The developers pretty much never retcon things other than movepool, and even movepools they tend to leave alone.  Dragon's also pretty clearly a late addition, so it plausibly could have been meant to be water/dragon.  But it's still water/flying and water/flying it shall remain.


----------



## Coloursfall (Mar 18, 2011)

I really hate when people do the 'OMG Dunsparce is so stupid what is it and why is it called a snake it doesn't look like one why does it exist?!?"

It's a Tsuchinoko. I can understand being puzzled at first, but at least do some research before you bash something for it 'not being based on anything'.  I see this far too much, sadly.


----------



## Not Meowth (Mar 18, 2011)

Big Red Cherry Bomb said:


> I really hate when people do the 'OMG Dunsparce is so stupid what is it  and why is it called a snake it doesn't look like one why does it  exist?!?"
> 
> It's a Tsuchinoko. I can understand being puzzled at first, but at least do some research before you bash something for it 'not being based on anything'.  I see this far too much, sadly.


A lot of Pokémon get deemed pointless or ridiculous because they're based on things that most fans outside Japan have probably never heard of. Bronzor and Bronzong get attacked quite often for being weird and not really having anything much in common, but when you've heard about the folklore they originate from they're actually kind of clever.


----------



## Coloursfall (Mar 18, 2011)

Zoroark said:


> A lot of Pokémon get deemed pointless or ridiculous because they're based on things that most fans outside Japan have probably never heard of. Bronzor and Bronzong get attacked quite often for being weird and not really having anything much in common, but when you've heard about the folklore they originate from they're actually kind of clever.


I know, and it's a bit upsetting :c I mean, it's a _Japanese_ series, you'd think people would realize that it would use things _from Japan._  And finding out what these things are isn't that hard, what with the internet and all.


----------



## Vipera Magnifica (Mar 18, 2011)

Well, it obviously cannot be exactly like a vine snake. Snakes have no eyelids. Legless lizards do. But even so, Ken Sugimori himself said that it was based off of the vine snake.

And another thing: "Zangoose: The Cat Ferret Pokemon"
Cat Ferret? How about Mongoose...


----------



## nothing to see here (Mar 18, 2011)

> can understand being puzzled at first, but at least do some research before you bash something for it 'not being based on anything'.


Speaking of that, why is "not being based on anything" even a reason for people to bash a Pokémon in the first place? Not every Pokémon has to have an obvious "this is based on a (insert real-life critter/legend/object/etc. here)" origin!


----------



## Ether's Bane (Mar 19, 2011)

Octillery. Jet Pokemon.


----------



## Crazy Linoone (Mar 19, 2011)

What really annoys me about a lot of the pokemon-base arguments is that a lot of pokemon are based on more than one thing. 

Yes, the Johto Legendary Trio are based on these Chinese mythology dog creatures (flowey mane, tail, etc). They are also based on big cats (Sabre-toothed tiger, lion, etc). 

Although the Snivy line do look more like grass lizards than snakes, the head looks very much like that of a vine snake, so it's highly probable that it's based on both grass lizards _and_ vine snakes.


----------



## Pokephile Girl (Mar 19, 2011)

Crazy Linoone said:


> so it's highly probable that it's based on both grass lizards _and_ vine snakes.


Well, THAT's the point. Lot of pokémons (almost all of them) are based of various animals, cratures or even things.

I love Snivy and I love snakes and lizards. For me, she's a snake with arms and legs, and I find it's ok for any one else to preffer thinking she's a grass lizard because, in fact, Snivy's head and shape seems that kind of animal.


----------



## goldenquagsire (Mar 19, 2011)

Spaekle said:


> It irritates me a bit when people call Arceus a horse.


Bulbapedia says it's 'equine', so horselike but not exactly a horse. :/


----------



## Not Meowth (Mar 19, 2011)

FnrrfYgmSchnish said:


> Speaking of that, why is "not being based on anything" even a reason for people to bash a Pokémon in the first place?


Because some people just like to hate everything apart from the first 151 for no damn reason.

"_oh god these new Pokémon are so weird, what are they even based on? They're just totally random and made up! They're *so uncreative*!_"

...unless they're talking about one of the Pokémon from Gen I, but that's unlikely because pretty much every Gen I Pokémon's design is just "THIS IS A REAL ANIMAL, BUT NOW IT'S A POKÉMON!".


----------



## Murkrow (Mar 19, 2011)

Zoroark said:


> Because some people just like to hate everything apart from the first 151 for no damn reason.
> 
> "_oh god these new Pokémon are so weird, what are they even based on? They're just totally random and made up! They're *so uncreative*!_"
> 
> ...unless they're talking about one of the Pokémon from Gen I, but that's unlikely because pretty much every Gen I Pokémon's design is just "THIS IS A REAL ANIMAL, BUT NOW IT'S A POKÉMON!".


I've never seen someone complain about "not being based on anything"
If anything, being unoriginal is the biggest complaint people have, complaining that lots of Pokémon are "THIS IS A REAL ANIMAL, BUT NOW IT'S A POKÉMON!". Usually directed at new ones but I then point out that most of the Gen 1 ones are like that.


----------



## Aisling (Mar 19, 2011)

goldenquagsire said:


> Bulbapedia says it's 'equine', so horselike but not exactly a horse. :/


I guess that would explain why people call it a horse, but Bulbapedia can use whatever adjectives they please till they turn blue and that wouldn't make Arceus into anything that makes sense. I could call it a quadruped and the description would still be just as precise as it could get. I can kinda see the Qilin (which are either deer or oxen with a dragon's face) in Arceus design-wise but otherwise it just looks like a thing.


----------



## Butterfree (Mar 19, 2011)

Much agreement on the "EVERY POKÉMON MUST BE BASED ON EXACTLY ONE THING!!" argument. Why can't they draw inspiration from multiple species exactly?


----------



## Dannichu (Mar 20, 2011)

This reminds me of a complaint someone made to Pixar shortly after the release of Finding Nemo. They said something to the effect of "I am shocked and appalled that nobody took the time to properly research the local colourings of pelicans - Nigel is coloured brown and white, but as an Australian pelican, he should clearly be black and white!"

To which Pixar responded: "Thank you for your comment; while researching pelicans (it turns out you are correct about the colour thing) we also noticed another glaring error in our film - pelicans can't talk."


----------



## Anomaly 54 (Mar 20, 2011)

Them: Why do we need Pidove? We already have Pidgey, who's a pidgeon
Me: 

	
	
		
		
	


	






*PKMN Trainer Chris sent out VILEPLUME*
Kyle: Hey look a giant rose!
Me:


----------



## Spatz (Mar 20, 2011)

I stillpersonally think people complain too much about pokemon for their own good. I remember the extensive criticism the pokemon of the fourth gen got based on their design (I merely found Probopass the only real oddity), it's really not worth wasting one's breath/typing on.

Mind you I'd like them to make the species names a little more accurate, that way people have less reason to criticize.

On the Snivy subject (as it's the learly main theme of the thread) Snivy is likly the combination of snake and lizard, but may have something to do with the serpent in the Garden of Eve.


----------



## sv_01 (Mar 20, 2011)

Zoroark said:


> Because some people just like to hate everything apart from the first 151 for no damn reason.
> 
> "_oh god these new Pokémon are so weird, what are they even based on? They're just totally random and made up! They're *so uncreative*!_"
> 
> ...unless they're talking about one of the Pokémon from Gen I, but that's unlikely because pretty much every Gen I Pokémon's design is just "THIS IS A REAL ANIMAL, BUT NOW IT'S A POKÉMON!".


Only those that are solely based on animals with no plants, mushrooms or cannons atached to them. Except the legendaries. And the dragons (Not just official dragons, but also the Char sequence and Gyarados). And the ones wih multiple heads and tails. And Vaporeon. And Diglett doesn't look much like a real animal either.

And speaking of identifying Pokémon as animals they aren't based on, I've heard someone saying that Groudon is a mole. I used to think it was an armadillo then, but now i know it's a dinosaur. Besides, an armadillo is more similar to a dinosaur than a mole.

Oh, and I used to think Sandshrew and Sandslash were armadillos as well because I didn't know about pangolins. Well, better than mice.


----------



## ultraviolet (Mar 20, 2011)

Kangaskhan sort of annoys me because the only thing vaguely kangaroo-like about it is that they have pouches (which are common to marsupials in general anyway). Really, Kangaskhan is a bipedal dinosaur with a pouch.

That being said, it's one of my favourites, so.


----------



## Griffin (Mar 26, 2011)

Zhorken said:


> The Snivy line is so much awesomer with this knowledge.
> 
> Also:
> 
> ...


FUN FACT: An alternate name for "shisa" is "fuu dog," while the direct translation of "shisa" in Chinese means "guardian lion." Yup, it's not just Pokemon that have the whole "based on more than one creature" thing going on.


----------

